Chapter Forty-Six
Forty-six
Kian
Is it creepy to show up at your coach’s house unannounced?
If it is, I’m about to find out because Scarlett is wrong. I didn’t get what I wanted.
But I know her. I knew the exact moment she’d made up her mind.
When something threatens the people she loves, she holds on to it, taking the brunt of it to save the rest. She tried to do that with her reputation, taking all the judgment thrown her way, then with Victor so she wouldn’t hurt her parents, and now with me.
She thinks we wouldn’t have happened if I knew Kilner was her dad. But I would have found her, or at least my heart would have found hers. Someway, somehow. I know it.
And that’s exactly what I’m going to prove to her. Coach Shane Kilner—yeah, I found out that his first name isn’t Coach—lives in West Hartford. It’s a nearby suburb with Tudor-style homes and tree-lined streets. It’s so clean, I wonder how Coach’s office is always a mess.
Scarlett grew up here. The thought makes me smile.
And that’s when a woman opens the door.
“Hi, ma’am. I’m—”
“Ishida.” There’s a soft smile on her face. “Sorry, I mean Kian. You’re Kian, right?”
Coach has always been private about his family life.
I know he has four children from his first marriage, all older than us, and he’s got pictures from their weddings in his office.
Although, I’ve seen the woman in front of me in some of those pictures, and the kid in those frames is a small girl, maybe twelve. I realize now that it was Scarlett.
“Yes. I’m Kian, and you’re…Scarlett’s mom, right? You have the same eyes. Dark around the irises and then lighter the closer you get to the pupil.”
She suppresses a grin before nodding. “I’m Marielle.”
“Is Coach around?”
She gives me an enthusiastic smile that eases my nerves the tiniest bit. “Of course he is. Come in!”
The walls that lead down the hall to the living room are full of pictures. There’s at least a dozen of Scarlett. Missing tooth, pigtails, blond hair, black hair, and finally scarlet hair.
“That was her adoption day. Happiest girl in the world.” Her mom stares proudly at the frame, a misty look in her eyes as she smiles. “That’s from Christmas. No one celebrates like the Filipinos, and she loves to keep up that tradition.”
We approach the living room, where Coach Kilner’s on the couch, writing something in a notebook as the TV plays old game tapes from the last Frozen Four.
“Mahal, someone’s here to see you,” Marielle places a hand on his shoulder.
“Have those kids not run out of chocolate, I swear we bought three boxes,” he says. “I have some cash in my jacket, sweetheart. Get me the almond one.”
He thinks I’m a high school student selling chocolates. Great.
I round the couch. “It’s me, Coach. I’d like to talk to you.”
Kilner gives me a look I can’t decipher. Like he’s planning something, murder maybe. Their backyard is big enough to put me six feet under.
“About what? How you’ve been sneaking around my back with my daughter?” He nearly raises his voice. “How I finally thought that you might have grown out of your childish bullshit, only to be lying to me all semester? Now, you want to be a man and talk to me?”
I gulp. “Yes.”
“You’ve got some nerve—”
“Shane. Give the kid a chance. He came all the way here,” Marielle says.
“My office,” he grumbles.
I follow him down the hall, pleading for Marielle to follow, but all she gives me is a sympathetic smile and a “You got this.”
Kilner shuts and locks the door behind us. He’s going to kill me.
“You’ve got guts, Ishida. I’ll give you that.”
His gaze cuts over his shoulder, icy and sharp. “You think sneaking around with her for who knows how long makes you a man?”
The air stretches thin between us. But I won’t tell him I didn’t know, I won’t do that to Scarlett.
“I care about her,” I say. “I’m not here to disrespect you. Or the team. But our relationship has nothing to do with hockey. And I’m not proud of keeping it from you. I’m sorry for that.”
His eyes narrow, reading me, probably waiting for me to flinch or back down.
“I love your daughter, sir. And if I’m not wrong, I think she loves me too.
But more than that, she’s my best friend, and there’s not a second I want to be without her.
” I inhale an uneven breath. “You can put me on bag skates for eternity. You can strip me of the captain title. You can bench me for the rest of this season. I’ll take it, whatever you throw at me, but I can’t take you being mad at Scarlett. ”
He stills, something quick and unguarded flickering across his face. “You came here to vouch for her?”
“She hasn’t smiled, hasn’t looked at me the way she usually does, she’s been saying things that aren’t true, we haven’t even kis—” I pause, clearing my throat. “I don’t want you to think she screwed up by being with me, or that she has bad judgement. She doesn’t deserve that.”
He sighs, loudly, before sitting on his desk chair. He gestures for me to follow suit. “Rosie is a smart girl, and I’ve never questioned her judgment. It’s that she chose to keep it from me, and that tells me she didn’t think I was a safe person to turn to.”
“I won’t speak for her, but you have to understand that neither of us planned for this.”
“Are you really here just to make her case?”
I nod.
It’s so quiet I can hear the heat moving through the vents.
He stands, suddenly. “How did you get my address?”
I shrug. “It wasn’t hard. I just distracted our admin secretary at the front desk, asked her to check on something for me in the archives.
Snuck onto her computer and searched your profile.
There were two addresses, so I went to both.
The last family was not happy that I walked on their freshly sodded lawn and then proceeded to accuse them of lying that you weren’t home. ”
Coach shakes his head, and his silence sits heavy over me.
The wrinkles on his forehead don’t change, and I feel that pit form in my stomach.
The one that had only slightly lifted when he made me captain.
“I don’t intend to stop loving your daughter, sir.
She’s made that pretty damn impossible. So, you can do whatever you need to, I’ll be ready either way. ”
Kilner’s stare could kill a man, and maybe a few months ago it would have killed me. But this isn’t for me, it’s for Scarlett, and I would stand through anything for her.
Then with the weight of a puck jammed between my ribs, I walk out—I think I may have blacked out for a moment. My legs feel weak, yet I’m debating whether I should sprint to my car. But not before I give Marielle a hug and leave with a huge container of pancit.